Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there has been renewed attention directed toward the campaign he left behind, Turning Point USA.
TPUSA is a conservative nonprofit organization that makes appearances at high schools, colleges and universities throughout the United States.
They first made their appearance at Stan State last semester as a non-recognized student organization with their “Exposing the Trans Agenda” event. As of early September, they have been approved as an official student organization here at Stan State.
On Sept. 23rd, they hosted their first on campus debate outside the Student Center, which encouraged students to participate in discussion regarding the controversial topic of abortion.
Stan State TPUSA chapter President, Wyland S. Hapgood, said that they plan to be in the quad every Wednesday with a similar format with hopes of having guest speakers in the future.
“It is a political advocacy group for the conservative side of the aisle,” Hapgood stated
“Allowing other college students to not only express their views, but to come join our wonderful movement, and that is what we plan to do,” he said
Hapgood continues, “especially when establishing chapters, both in campus and high school, bringing that conservative perspective and teaching everybody from the youth, to even the older, to love thy country and to love thy God.”
He continued to explain how these debates are meant to be open conversation where anyone can speak their mind as long as it is relayed in a civil manner.
In response to abortion, he claims that the group is on the pro-life side of the conversation and would love to hear from conversations from the other side.
The Treasurer of the TPUSA Stan State, Jacob Davis, voiced that conservatives have been suppressed by society and TPUSA aims to strengthen those voices.
“Conservative’s simply haven’t been voicing their opinions because we’ve been suppressed, or at least socially shamed and we’re over it,” Davis stated.
He continued to say “We’re not going to stay silent just because of pressure anymore. It’s not honest, it’s not genuine and frankly, it’s exhausting. Today’s abortion event has a lot to do with educating people.”
In front of their booth, there was a poster with information on abortion. Under the “Should there be exceptions” portion, it lists exceptions such as rape and the life of the mother being at risk.
Under these exceptions it states, “If you vote yes for the rare cases (<2%), you are voting yes on 100% of abortions.”
It further explains that all pro- life laws allow exceptions for the mothers life, and most pro-life laws allow exceptions for rape and incest. The poster has more information on abortions and a scannable QR code that leads to a page called studentsforlife.org.
“I’m absolutely against abortion,” Davis responded when asked about his views on the topic. He then went on to expand on the topic of contraceptives and how they can cause infertility.
Medical experts, however say Plan B does not cause infertility, According to Plan B one step’s official site:
“Plan B does not impact your ability to get pregnant in the future. After temporarily delaying ovulation, you will continue to ovulate in the future, and can still get pregnant later, if you choose to.”
“That’s my secular argument. I’m on a religious front, there are a lot of people who try to justify this themselves by saying, ‘Oh, well, it’s just a clump of cells.’ We are still collections of cells as adults. To your death you are a collection of cells,” Davis expanded.
Diana Olivera is the Secretary of Social Media for TPUSA, and her role is to run social media and promote the organization.
When asked about her stance on abortion, Olivera says that she is pro-life. She believes that women should be given opportunities to be able to take care of their children after giving birth.
“We do allow for the exception of the life of the mother, but when it comes to rape or incest, if it’s a child and it threatens the life of the other than, yes, that would be fine,” she said.
She further expanded, “But if we’re talking about rape and incest, we don’t value human life based upon how they were conceived.”
Olivera believes that when the life of the mother is at risk there can be exceptions made, but is against abortion in any other situation.
She then discusses different circumstances that can be emotionally damaging to mothers and what they can do.
“I understand that sometimes there’s difficult situations like rape, that’s incredibly emotionally challenging for a woman and if she can go through with that she can have a c-section and give up the child for adoption, but again, I don’t think the solution is ever to murder an innocent human being,” she explained.
When Ella Adams was asked how she feels about TPUSA becoming a registered student organization, she expressed concern.
Adams relayed her disappointment in the university for allowing them to have a regular presence on campus.
“It makes me feel pretty uncomfortable because I don’t believe that any group should be allowed to speak hate on our campus,” she said.
When it comes to freedom of speech, Adams believes that they should be allowed to believe and discuss topics she does not agree with, but she believes that their approach is aggressive and has no place on college campuses.
“They claim that they’re debating, but they’re just trying to teach,” she says.
When asked if she knew about this specific event, she said to have not known of this event going on.
“if more people knew about it, more people would have come, and they would have had more differing ideals,” she said.
Adams claimed that it’s strange that there wasn’t any promotion on their event. She believes that they didn’t want to deal with the backlash and repercussions of a more diverse crowd at their event.
“And if they’re not willing to let everyone know that they’re here, then they’re not willing to allow all different types of discussion,” she stated.
